All posts tagged: Forgiveness

The gunman returned wallet and phone after Shaquille Hairston started praying

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[by Dean Smith] Shaquille Hairston, 21, works the late shift at a hotel in Euclid, Ohio. On June 3, he caught the bus home late that night, as he usually did. When Hairston got off at a stop near his home, a man who was also on the bus slipped off as well. After the bus departed, the man approached Shaquille on the dark, deserted street, pulled out a gun and demanded money. In an interview with Cleveland’s Fox News, Shaquille said when he told the man he didn’t have any cash, the robber hit him on the head with his gun.

Can we change the past through God?

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[by Dean Smith] I won’t pretend to understand anything these guys are talking about, but I am always fascinated when scientists talk of Quantum mechanics. In a recent study, a scientist has suggested that contrary to our personal experience time runs both forward and backwards. Our experience with time is that it goes from the past to present to future and only the past and present can affect the future. However, professor Kater Murch from Washington University has been looking at quantum mechanics and discovered that time in the quantum world seems to run both ways. And by doing so, the future has the ability to change the past. As odd as this sounds, I sometimes wonder if these strange theories may help us understand some puzzling statements made by Jesus in the Gospels. But before we get to those verses, let me explain a bit more about Murch’s theory.

A woman’s perspective: Where is the balance?

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[by Barb Smith] For the past two years, I have been  on a journey seeking answers for my damaged emotions which, I believe, also affected my physical well-being. I realize now, my greatest struggles have come from my fear of rejection stemming from insecurities about myself, my appearance and my relationships. I couldn’t say “no” to anything or anyone because I was trying to please people. I spiritualized my actions thinking I was denying myself and making sacrifices. It felt biblical.

Did God answer Angelina Jolie’s prayer?

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[by Dean Smith] An interesting thing happened on the set of the movie “Unbroken” being filmed in New South Wales, Australia. It is a film on the life of Louis Zamperini, a born-again Christian, who died this past July at the age of 92. At a news conference in New York City last week, Cynthia Garris — the daughter of Louis Zamperini — said in the middle of filming actress/director Angelina Jolie dropped to her knees in front of the crew and prayed. On one of the last days of filming, the crew needed clear skies to complete the final shot. It had rained the whole day.

The blank column

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[by Earl Blacklock] Tex Wilson was a newspaper editor in the U.S. midwest, 40 years in the business. At 65, he purchased a local newspaper as his retirement project. He was editor, photographer, and reporter together. Whether there was celebration or sorrow in the town, Tex was there to record the event. Over the years, the community learned to appreciate Tex and his newspaper. There was one thing, though, that gave them pause. On occasion, the paper would be printed with a column or two totally blank. It seemed at first an oversight, like someone forgot to lay the page out properly. But it happened often enough that speculation as to its meaning began.

Is forgetting tied to forgiveness? A study suggests it is.

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I remember years ago getting flashbacks. I would be doing a particular activity when suddenly an incident that had happened decades earlier would replay in my mind. I had three incidents in particular that seemed to plague me. I finally asked the Holy Spirit why I had these memories. There were thousands of things that happened to me growing up that I couldn’t remember even if someone paid me money, yet there were three I couldn’t forget.

Doctors diagnose a broken heart

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Researchers at John Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland came up with a phrase  “broken heart syndrome” to describe a peculiar type of patient. They developed the phrase as a result of their diagnosis of 20 people (18 were women) who had come to the hospital complaining of a heart attack. In each case, the person displayed classic heart attack symptoms such as shortness of breath, pains in the chest, accumulation of lung fluid and a noticeable reduction in the heart’s ability to pump blood. 

Repelling Satan’s mind games!

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Have you ever felt your mind was under attack? Have you felt flooded with condemning thoughts or memories of past failure? The Apostle Paul provides insight into a possible source of these thoughts:  “But for one whom you forgive anything, I forgive also; for indeed what I have forgiven, if I have forgiven anything, I did it for your sakes in the presence of Christ so that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his devices.” (2 Cor 2:10, 11 NASV) In this passage, Paul was referring to an incident he addressed in his first letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 5:1-13). It involved a man living with his father’s wife — probably his step mother. 

Brain scans shows forgiving others helps restore good mental health

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And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. (Mathew 6:12 NASV) Forgiving was a key tenet of Jesus’ teaching. For years, people treated it as purely a religious exercise, but now therapists and psychologists are understanding its importance and have embraced forgiveness as a vital counseling tool. This led researchers in England to take a closer look at forgiveness from a scientific perspective. They found evidence forgiving others may be a key to restoring good mental health. 

Forgiveness is not a contradiction

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In many ways, the Bible seems like a book of opposites. In the Old Testament law it was an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But in the New Testament, Jesus said we must forgive those who do you wrong. These two views are so extreme, they seem almost irreconciable. Yet the sad story of the senseless murder of Brian Muha best explains this paradox. Brian was attending school at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, where he planned to become a doctor. He had returned home to briefly to visit Rachel, his mother, and was heading back for summer classes. 

Forgiving the Nazi SS

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Corrie Ten Boom died April 15, 1983 on the same day she was born 91 years earlier. According to Jewish tradition, a person is considered especially blessed by God when this event occurs. Certainly the nation of Israel considered Corrie blessed when in 1967, it named her “Righteous among the nations” — a special award handed out to individuals who helped Jews escape the holocaust in World War II. Corrie was a Christian and during the war she and her family — who lived in Holland — were involved with the Dutch Resistance fighting the Nazis on their soil. The Ten Boom’s primary activity during those dark years was providing a “hiding place” for Jews trying to escape